What Really Happened at the Montréal May Day Protest?
by Andrew Gavin Marshall
TheIntelHub.com
May 3, 2012
On May 1, 2012, thousands of students and other protesters took to the streets for the Anti-Capitalist rally in downtown Montréal.
I attended the protest with a couple friends, and having read the “news” emanating from the “stenographers of power” (the mainstream media), it’s important to set the record straight about what happened here in Montréal.
The Montreal Gazette reported the events with the headline, “Police respond as May Day anti-capitalist protesters turn violent in Montreal.”
This exact story and headline were carried across the English-speaking media fresh for the morning’s papers: with the Vancouver Sun, the Province, the Calgary Herald, the Regina Leader-Post, the Edmonton Journal, and the Ottawa Citizen.
The story, as they tell is, goes like this: it started peacefully just after 5 p.m. (this part is true!), and then it “was declared illegal by police at two minutes after 6 p.m. following violent clashes.”
A police spokesperson (who apparently is the only person the media chose to interview for their article) said that, “injuries to a citizen, police officers and vandalism on cars and property were the reasons for declaring the march illegal.”
The article then blamed “black-clad youth [who] were seen hurling rocks at store windows,” after which the police began to launch flash grenades, and the riot police moved in after 6 p.m. “using batons to disperse the crowd.”
At 7:10 p.m., “a full hour after declaring the demonstration illegal, police announced that anyone who refused to leave would be arrested.”
The CBC went with the headline, “More than 100 arrests in Montreal May Day riot.” CTV reported that of the 100+ arrests that took place, “75 were for unlawful assembly, while the remaining 34 were for criminal acts.”
So, arrested for “unlawful assembly”: what does that mean? It means that when the police unilaterally declare a protest to be “illegal,” everyone who is there is “unlawfully assembling,” and thus, mass and indiscriminate arrests can be made.
In Part 1, Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, it is stated that “[e]veryone has the following fundamental freedoms”: conscience, religion, thought, belief, expression, media, communication, association, and “freedom of peaceful assembly.”
Having been at the protest from its beginning, I can say that it was a peaceful march. While there were individual acts of vandalism (the worst I saw was drawing on a bank’s window with a black marker), if police action were to be taken, it should be to arrest the specific vandal. Instead, they implemented collective punishment for exercising our “fundamental freedoms.”
The protest began in the Old Port of the city of Montréal, and made it’s way down rue Notre-Dame, up St-Laurent, and down to the financial district. The mood was good, people were in high spirits, with music, drums, the occasional fire cracker, young and old alike.
The march had been successfully split, and the small factions were then being isolated and surrounded. Suddenly, riot police were everywhere, marching up the street like storm troopers, police cars, vans, horses, motorcycles, and trucks were flying by.
As one faction of the protest continued down another street, the riot police followed behind, while another massive onslaught of riot police went around to block off the protesters from the other side.
When the police first charged, I had lost one of my friends simply by looking away for a moment. After having found each other up the street, we watched as the protest which descended down the street was surrounded by police from nearly every side. It was then that we saw flash grenades and tear gas being launched at the crowd of people. There was a notable smell that filled the air.
As we stood, shocked and disturbed by what had just happened, we made our way toward McGill to see where other protesters were headed when we saw a group of riot police “escort” three young protesters whom they had arrested behind a police barricade at the HSBC (protecting the banks, of course!).
Up the street, and across from McGill, one protester who had run to get on the bus was chased down by several riot police who then threw him face-first onto the pavement, and as a crowd quickly gathered around (of both protesters and pedestrian onlookers), the police formed a circle around the man and told everyone to “get back!” and then they began marching toward us, forcing the crowd of onlookers to scatter as well.
The police then took the young man over to where the other protesters were being “collected” at the HSBC.
There was one young girl, with the notable red square patch on her jacket (the symbol of the Québec student movement) who had to be taken away on a stretcher into an ambulance. We don’t know what happened to her.
As more and more police gathered, we decided it was time to leave, walking down the street through which the police had chased the protesters, remnants of signs, red patches, and other debris spilled across the streets; the remains of a peaceful protest ended with police violence.
This has become all too common in Montréal and across Québec, as the student protest enters its twelfth week, having had over 160 protests, an average of 2-3 per day.
As the demonstrations take place, the police have used obscure and unconstitutional city by-laws in both Montréal and Québec City which are so vague in their descriptions that any peaceful assembly or march can be declared illegal. Those who are indiscriminately arrested are fined $500, and if arrested again, are charged between $3,500 and $10,500.
It is clear that the State has decided – unilaterally – that freedom of speech and freedom of assembly do not confirm to their specific “by-laws,” and are clamping down on students and protesters in order to quiet and crush the student strike and the emerging social movement which is being referred to as the ‘Maple Spring’.
The national media, for its part, has decided to demonize the students, the protesters, and the people; taking the word of a “police spokesperson” over everyone else. Having been at the protest, however, I must question whether these so-called “journalists” were at the same event, because we witnessed two entirely different scenarios.
We entered the march in good spirits, and the police ended it in violence and repression, leaving us standing still, scattered, and disturbed; but our spirits are not crushed, our resolve is only growing stronger, and for each act of violence the police and State impose upon the people, we begin to see them for what they truly are, and thus, what is truly at stake: our very freedom, itself!
Andrew Gavin Marshall is an independent researcher and writer based in Montreal, Canada, writing on a number of social, political, economic, and historical issues. He is also Project Manager of The People’s Book Project. He also hosts a weekly podcast show, “Empire, Power, and People,” onBoilingFrogsPost.com.
Student Left In DEA Holding Cell Forced To Drink Urine To Survive [video included]
by Johnny Green
The Weed Blog
May 2, 2012
Student Was Detained By The DEA After Attending A 4/20 Party
Daniel Chong is a 23 year old student at UC San Diego. Chong was at a friend’s 4/20 celebration in University City, California when the DEA raided the party. The DEA took Chong to their office in Kearny Mesa. According to NBC, “He said agents questioned him, and then told him he could go home. One agent even offered him a ride, Chong said. No criminal charges were filed against him.”
Seems like a straight forward case right? Far from it. Instead of being sent home, Daniel Chong was placed in a 5 by 10 foot holding cell for five days without food and water. The DEA agents placed him in a holding cell and forgot about him. “They never came back, ignored all my cries and I still don’t know what happened,” Chong told NBC. “I’m not sure how they could forget me.”
In Chong’s desperation, he said he was forced to drink his own urine. “I had to do what I had to do to survive….I hallucinated by the third day,” Chong said. “I was completely insane.” After Chong was finally discovered, the DEA gave him a ride to the hospital and paid for the bill. However, still to this day they have yet to issue an apology.
By the time Chong got to the hospital his kidneys were failing, there were signs that he was completely insane, and signs that he tried to take his own life while in his delusional state. When I first red this story, I thought there was no way this could be true. How is this possible in America? Sadly, it is all true. I hope Mr. Chong sues the pants off of the DEA.
Is this what we want our tax dollars going to? To raiding 4/20 parties and treating the participants like terrorists at a torture center? There should be people protesting outside of the DEA center in Kearny Mesa 24 hours a day. Daniel Chong, I don’t even know what to say brother. I’m sorry that you had to go through that, and I hope that you make those jerks pay out the nose.
Bahrain Revolution – News Analysis – 05/01/2012 [video]
Press TV
May 2, 2012
Over 14 months and anti-regime protests are still alive in Bahrain. On Tuesday, May Day demonstrators said the regime has deprived them of their jobs to punish them for taking part in rallies. Concerns are growing over the state of detained activists and a continued crackdown directly supported by Saudi Arabia, but what has enabled the al-Khalifa regime to calmly claim all is well in this tiny Persian Gulf kingdom?
Watch this video on our Website: http://www.presstv.com/Program/239176.html
Firefox creators Mozilla attack Congress; denounce CISPA
Russia Today
May 2, 2012
Silicon Valley’s Mozilla Corporation has tasked themselves with extinguishing a fire, and no, it’s not what you have in mind.
Mozilla, the Mountain View, California-based developers responsible for creating the hugely successful Firefox Web browser, has issued a statement publically condemning the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA. In a memo sent to Forbes’ data security department on late Tuesday, Mozilla’s privacy and public policy official explains that its newly-publicized stance is not one that encourages online cyber attacks, but merely establishes that the company is in favor of protecting the rights of its users.
“While we wholeheartedly support a more secure Internet, CISPA has a broad and alarming reach that goes far beyond Internet security,” reads the statement. “The bill infringes on our privacy, includes vague definitions of cybersecurity, and grants immunities to companies and government that are too broad around information misuse. We hope the Senate takes the time to fully and openly consider these issues with stakeholder input before moving forward with this legislation.”
Mozilla’s issues with CISPA mirror opposition that was voiced last week on Capitol Hill during debates over the legislation. Rep Jan Schakowsky (D Illinois) said the cybersecurity bill “still fails to adequately safeguard the privacy of Americans” and that the government needs to be able to “combat the serious threat of cyber attacks and still insure that we are protecting our computer systems and the civil liberties of Americans.”
Jared Polis, a Democratic rep for Colorado, issued similar concerns, stating, “CISPA represents a massive government overreach in the name of security” and that “Any America that values his or her privacy should be concerned.”
At this point, however, the US Senate is now the only Washington entity that stands between CISPA and the desk of President Barack Obama. In a hurried vote last Thursday, the US House of Representatives passed the bill in its current form much to the chagrin of lawmakers like Schakowsky and Polis, essentially leaving approval from the other side of Congress the only thing that the bill needs to be brought to the White House.
Advisers for President Obama have issued a statement on their own part insisting that the administration will recommend that the commander-in-chief vetoes the bill if it is brought to the Oval Office, although critics have already come out to call the move another example of election year pandering. The White House issued a similar statement last year regarding the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, or the NDAA. Originally the Obama administration said that the president had issues over the bill’s provisions regarding the indefinite detention of American citizens, although Obama eventually inked his name to the paper on New Year’s Eve.
This time around, condemnation is indeed present in regards to CISPA’s future, but Mozilla’s just-released memorandum could be a catalyst in bringing more critics out of the woodwork. Although opponents of CISPA have certainly come out against the bill for weeks now, Mozilla’s statement is among one of the first released by a major Internet entity. Other Silicon Valley giants such as IBM, Facebook and Microsoft still stand in favor of the bill. In recent days, it was reported that Microsoft switched stances and would formally oppose CISPA. This week, however, Digital Journal reports that a spokesperson for the company now confirms that the official Microsoft stance on CISPA is “unchanged,” returning Bill Gates’ billion-dollar corporation to the supportive side of CISPA.
That isn’t to say, of course, that widespread opposition of CISPA is far from rampant. In the recent days since CISPA’s passing, critics have continued to speak up against the act. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, presidential hopeful Ron Paul and the American Civil Liberties Union have all taken an anti-CISPA stance, as well as the popular web forum Reddit.
[hat tip: EndtheLie.com]
Jason Bermas on Military Cyborg Contacts, Reptilian Overlords, Secret Service Scandal, and More [video]
The Intel Hub News Brief
April 17, 2012
Jason delves into this weeks news stories including the Secret Service prostitution scandal, glaciers gaining size, Military Cyborg Contacts, and much much more!
Follow theintelhub.com on twitter:
http://twitter.com/intelhub
Jason Bermas on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/jasonbermas
No-Fly Zone To Be Enforced By Shoot-To-Kill Order During NATO Summit [video included]
CBS Chicago
May 2, 2012
UPDATED 05/02/12 11:19 a.m.
CHICAGO (CBS) — Plans to keep residents and dignitaries safe during the NATO Summit include a no-fly zone, with a shoot-to-kill warning for those who break the ban.
As CBS 2’s Susanna Song reports, the government is informing small plane pilots that if they enter the no-fly zone during the summit, they may be shot down.
This is no joke. It will be enforced for May 19 to May 21.
The flight advisory was issued by the Federal Aviation Administration. The advisory bans non-commercial aircraft from flying within 10 nautical miles of downtown Chicago and below 18,000 feet.
[CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE AND WATCH THE VIDEO]
[hat tip: WideAwakeNews.com]
PN 